Fearless on Everest: The Quest for Sandy Irvine

by Julie Summers

  No one knows for certain what Mallory and Sandy did on the afternoon of 7 June after their arrival at Camp VI. In the past Mallory had tended to arrive in camp and then go for a walk, prospecting his route for the next, upward leg, as Norton had done the afternoon he and Somervell got into VI. Mallory had done this on his first arrival at Camp IV earlier in May, so it is probable that he spent that afternoon considering their possible route for the following day. It is known that Mallory favoured the ‘ridge route’, or ‘skyline’ as he called it. This was a very exposed ridge but it was always his preferred option. The route favoured by Norton was across the face of the upper mountain and up the couloir to the base of the summit pyramid.

  Nowadays climbers tend to follow ‘skyline’ or Mallory’s route, and when I talked to the Himalayan guide Russell Brice we discussed at some length which route he thought Mallory would have taken. He has summited twice, both times from the north side, but this record hides the fact that he frequently climbs above 28,000 feet from where, at a camp some 1000 vertical feet below the summit, he keeps track of his guides and clients. His knowledge of the north-east ridge route of Everest is unrivalled. Given the distance from the 1924 Camp VI and the fact that Mallory and Sandy were route-finding, which is by its nature slower than following a known route, and one in part with fixed ropes, he felt it unlikely that they had made it. He also pointed to the old chestnut, the Second Step. ‘No one can agree whether they could have climbed it or not,’ he said, ‘hey, not even the guys from last year were agreed.’

  More interesting, however, than whether or not Brice thought Mallory and Sandy could have free-climbed the Second Step is his contention that the distance from Camp VI to the summit is so great that he had introduced a further camp, CampVII. He recalls that the elite climber Ed Viesturs has climbed to the summit and back from roughly the site of the 1924 Camp VI but he points out that Viesturs is in a class of his own when it comes to performance at high altitude. ‘It’s just too far,’ Brice considered, ‘with route finding and all that, I just don’t think they could have made it.’ Then he stopped and composed his thoughts again: ‘Of course, that’s assuming that Mallory and Irvine took the same route that we take up the ridge nowadays.’ This was too much for my son, Simon, who had been sitting patiently listening to the conversation, nodding his head at references he recognised ‘Why don’t you try a different route?’ he enquired. ‘Well, Simon,’ Brice replied, ‘I guess we’re just too lazy to try a different route!’ It was a good point though. The fundamental difference between now and then is that climbers are using a known route. Sandy and Mallory were pioneering the path to the summit and there is no certainty that they did not find a way around the difficult obstacle of the Second Step which may or may not exist. No one knows. Nowadays all climbers take the ridge route and use the Chinese ladder and the thought of setting out to try to find a different route is not on the agenda of most modern Everesters. ‘In that harsh environment experience counts,’ Brice concluded. No climber with any sense is going to question that.

  In 1924, however, the route was still to be established. Mallory sent down a note to Captain Noel telling him to look out for them on skyline at about 8 a.m., but that was before the afternoon of 7 June. ‘Dear Noel, We’ll probably start early to-morrow (8th) in order to have clear weather. It won’t be too early to start looking out for us either crossing the rockband under the pyramid or going up skyline at 8pm.’ It has been universally accepted that by 8 p.m. Mallory in fact meant 8 a.m. and some have used it to indicate that he was suffering from the well recognized malfunction of his cognitive powers as climbers do at altitude. I find that a little difficult to accept in the light of the way he consistently outperformed the other climbers when Hingston conducted his ‘mental’ agility tests on them. If Mallory was indeed out on a reconnaissance mission the afternoon of 7 June it is likely that Sandy was busy preparing their meal, the thermoses for the following day and making last-minute checks on the oxygen apparatus. He had few tools with him for the final climb, but he probably had a pair of pliers and a spanner although he couldn’t have done a lot with those.

  That evening, after supper, Sandy asked Mallory to help him make one last check on the oxygen cylinders. While Sandy measured their individual oxygen contents, Mallory scribbled down the numbers of the cylinders and the pressures on the back of an envelope. In all they checked five of the cylinders in their cache at Camp VI; four had a bottle pressure of 110 and the fifth of 100. The envelope with these scribbles was found on Mallory’s body in May 1999 and it was a few months before the relevance of the notations was understood.

  On the morning of 8 June Sandy was detailed to make their breakfast while Mallory got himself ready for the climb. At what time they set off has always been a point of debate. Norton and Somervell had aimed to leave at 6 a.m. but were delayed by the leaking thermos. Mallory was known to like early starts and in the Alps he frequently set out before dawn on his climbs. In April he had written to Ruth: ‘We shall be starting by moonlight if the morning is calm and should have the mountain climbed if we’re lucky before the wind is dangerous.’ The morning of 8 June dawned bright and clear so it could well be that he and Sandy left Camp VI before day break as Mallory had proposed. Certainly if Mallory had suggested an early start he would have found no opposition from his young companion. After all, Sandy’s greatest ambition, the single driving force in his life now, was to get to the summit and he would have agreed to anything that would have given them the best chance. They closed up the tent and headed off towards the north east ridge, each man coccooned in a private world of hissing oxygen. To communicate other than by hand signals they had to remove their masks and this Sandy would have avoided on account of his sunburned face.

  Odell awoke early on the morning of 8 June and, after two hours of preparations, breakfast and tidying the tent he set off up towards Camp VI, full of optimism for the climbers above him and enjoying the glorious weather. He was fascinated by the geological finds he was making and was concentrating hard on the ground beneath his feet. At a height of some 26,000 feet he climbed a 100 foot crag that he admitted could have been circumnavigated but which he elected to climb as much as anything else as to test his fitness. When he reached the top of the crag, pleased with his performance and triumphant to have found the first fossil on Everest he looked up towards the highest reaches of the mountain. As he did so the cloud, which had been building since the late morning, parted, affording him a view of the north east ridge and the summit. What he saw, or what he claims to have seen, has been so minutely scrutinized that in the end Odell changed his story; however, in his expedition diary he recorded the following: ‘At 12.50 saw M & I on ridge nearing base of final pyramid.’

  Moments after he saw them the cloud closed in and the whole vision vanished from his view. The diary entry goes on: ‘Had a little rock climbing at 26,000, at 2 on reaching tent at 27,000 waited more than an hour.’Odell checked the tent and saw that Sandy had left it strewn with bits of oxygen apparatus. There were also a mixed assortment of spare clothes and some scraps of food and their sleeping bags. He was amused by the sight of the tent which reminded him of all the workshop tents Sandy had made wholly his own during the trek. ‘He loved to dwell amongst, nay, revelled in, pieces of apparatus and a litter of tools and was never happier than when up against some mechanical difficulty! And here to 27,000 feet he had been faithful to himself and carried his usual traits.’ He examined the tent for a note which might give some indication of the hour they left for the top or whether they had suffered any delay. There was nothing to be found. Meanwhile the weather had deteriorated. There was a blizzard blowing and he was concerned that the two men would have difficulty locating the tent under such conditions. He went out to whistle and holler with the idea of giving them direction. He climbed about 200 feet above the camp but the ferocity of the storm forced him to take refuge behind a rock from the driving sleet. In an endeavour to forget the cold he examined the rocks aroun
d him in case some point of geological interest could be found. Soon his accustomed enthusiasm for this pursuit waned and within an hour he turned back for Camp VI. He grasped that even if Mallory and Sandy were returning they would not be within hearing distance. As he reached camp the storm blew over and the upper mountain was bathed in sunshine, the snow which had fallen was evaporating rapidly. He waited for a time but, mindful of the fact that the camp was too small to house three men and also that Mallory had particularly requested him to return to the North Col, he set off back down the mountain. It had been Mallory’s intention, he believed, to get down to the North Col himself that night and even to Camp III if time and energy allowed as they were all aware of the possibility of the monsoon breaking at any moment. He placed the compass in a conspicuous position close to the tent door and, having partaken of a little meal, left ample provisions for the returning climbers, shut the tent up and set off back towards the North Col.

  As Odell made his way down by the extreme crest of the north ridge he halted every now and again to scan the rocks above him for any sign of movement of the climbers. It was a hopeless task as they would be almost invisible against the rocks and slabs. Only if they’d been making their way over one of the patches of snow or being silhouetted on the crest of the north-east arête might he have caught a glimpse of them. He saw nothing. Arriving on a level with Camp V at about 6.15 p.m., about one and three quarter hours after he left VI he decided that he was making such good progress that he would head straight down the North Col to Camp IV. He noted that the upward time between those camps IV and V was generally about three and a half hours whereas his return time was closer to thirty five minutes. Descending at high altitudes, he concluded, was little more tiring than at any other moderate altitude.

  Odell arrived at Camp IV at 6.45 p.m. where he was welcomed by Hazard who supplied him with large quantities of soup and tea. Together they scanned the mountain for any sight of light from a torch or distress flare but nothing was to be seen. It was a clear night with a moon that they hoped would help the returning climbers to find their camps. In his tent that night Odell reflected on the last two days. ‘And what a two days had it been – days replete with a gamut of impressions that neither the effects of high altitude, whatever this might be, nor the grim events of the two days that were to follow could efface from one’s memory.’ So great had his enjoyment been of the romantic, aesthetic and scientific experiences that he was able quite to put out of his mind the great hardship of climbing upwards at altitude. His thoughts, too, were focused on Mallory and Sandy, ‘that resolute pair who might at any instant appear returning with news of final conquest’.

  The next morning they scanned the upper mountain and the two camps for any sign of life or movement but nothing was seen. At midday Odell decided that he would search both camps himself and before he left he arranged a code of blanket signals with Hazard so that they could communicate to some extent if necessary. This was a fixed arrangement of sleeping bags which would be laid out against the snow in the daylight. At night they would use a code of simple flash signals including, if required, the International Alpine Distress Signal. As Odell and his two porters left the North Col they encountered the evil cross-wind that had so taken the heart out of the first attempt of Mallory and Bruce ten days earlier. They reached Camp V in three and a quarter hours but the porters were faltering. Odell was disappointed to see that the Camp had not been touched or occupied. He had hardly expected to find Mallory and Sandy there as any movement would have been visible from Camp IV but how desperately did he wish that a trace of them would be found. ‘And now one’s sole hopes rested on Camp VI, though in the absence of any signal from here earlier in the day, the prospects could not but be black.’ In view of the lateness of the hour and the fact that his two porters were unwilling to go any higher, a search of Camp VI would have to be delayed until the following day. He passed a very uncomfortable night in the bitter cold, unable to sleep despite two sleeping bags and wearing every stitch of clothing he possessed. The wind threatened to uproot the tents and he had to go out from the safety of his tent to put more rocks on the guy ropes of the porters’ tent. As he lay in his tent Odell fiddled with the oxygen apparatus lying there and determined to take it up to Camp VI with him the next day.

  As day dawned on 10 June the wind was as ferocious as ever and the two porters were even more miserable. Odell sent them back down to Camp IV and prepared himself for the upward slog to Camp VI. ‘Very bitter N. wind of great force all day’, he wrote in his diary, ‘climbed up slowly to W. of VI & finally reached tent.’ He was climbing using the same oxygen set he had used before and although he admitted it did allay the tiredness in his legs somewhat, he was not convinced that it gave him any real assistance. The wind forced him regularly to take shelter behind rocks all the way up the ridge and when he finally arrived in Camp VI he found the tent closed up, exactly as he had left it two days earlier. Bitterly disappointed he noted ‘no signs of M & I around’. He set out along the probable route that Sandy and Mallory had taken to make what search he could in the limited time available. His spirits were low. ‘This upper part of Everest must be indeed the remotest and least hospitable spot on earth, but at no time more emphatically and impressively so than when a gale races over its cruel face. And how and when more cruel could it ever seem than when balking one’s every step to find one’s friends?’ After two hours of struggling in the bitter wind, aware of the futility of his search, yet almost unable to turn his back on the mountain, he reluctantly gave up. At that moment, the awful truth dawned on him: his friends were nowhere to be seen and nowhere to be found. That sense of anguish is as strong today as it was in 1924. Whenever I read his account of that final search I sense the desperate feeling of fading hope as he comes to understand that the chances of finding them alive are all but gone. A lull in the wind allowed him to make the signal of sleeping bags in the snow as arranged with Hazard. A simple T-shape meant ‘No trace can be found, Given up hope, Awaiting orders’. Hazard received the signal 4000 feet below at the North Col but Odell was unable to read the answering signal in the poor light. What was there to read? He had sent down the mountain the worst piece of news conceivable and the only thought in his mind now was to get down safely in order to tell the others of his fruitless and hopeless search. Hazard relayed the message from Camp IV to the anxious climbers waiting at Camp III by laying out blankets in the form of a cross. Captain Noel spotted the sign through his telescope and when Geoffrey Bruce asked him what he could see, Noel was unable to reply. He simply passed the telescope over to him. ‘We each looked through the telescope,’ Noel recalled later, ‘and tried to make the signal different, but we couldn’t.’

  The pre-arranged blanket signal that meant ‘No trace can be found, given up hope, awaiting orders’.

  Odell returned to the tent where he collected Mallory’s compass and Sandy’s modified oxygen apparatus. His last entry in his diary for that day reads: ‘Left some provisions in tent, closed it up & came down ridge in violent wind & didn’t call at V.’ It cannot have been an easy decision to leave Camp VI; it meant turning his back on Sandy and Mallory forever. As he turned to look at the summit above him he sensed it seemed to look down with cold indifference on him, ‘mere puny man, and howl derision in wind-gusts at my petition to yield up its secret – this mystery of my friends. What right had we to venture thus far into the hold presence of the Supreme Goddess, or, much more, sling at her our blasphemous challenges to “sting her very nose-tip”?’

  And yet as he stood and gazed at the mountain, he was aware of the allure of its towering presence and he felt certain that ‘no mere mountaineer alone could but be fascinated, that he who approaches close must ever be led on … It seemed that my friends must have been thus enchanted also for why else would they tarry?’ Such a beguiling presence, such a deadly vision. The mountain was destined to keep its secret for over seventy years.

  Finally he accepted that the other climbers
in the camps below would be anxious for news of his discoveries, if there were any, and he knew in his heart of hearts that Sandy and Mallory could not have survived another night in the open above 27,000 feet.

  His climb down in the teeth of the gale, struggling with the heavy oxygen apparatus, took all his effort and concentration. Frequently he had to stop in the lee of rocks to protect himself from the wind and check for symptoms of frostbite, but eventually he was spotted by Hazard who sent his porter out to welcome him with hot tea while Hazard brewed soup in camp. On his arrival Odell was pleased to find a note from Norton and to discover that he had anticipated his wishes by abandoning the search and not putting any further lives at risk, namely his own, seeing as the monsoon was expected to break at any moment.

  Odell had spent a staggering eleven days above 23,000 feet and had climbed twice to above 27,000 feet without oxygen. It was one of the many extraordinary feats of strength demonstrated on the 1924 expedition and was all the more remarkable for the fact that he climbed entirely alone on both occasions to and from Camp VI, the place he described as the most inhospitable place on earth. His slow acclimatization was nevertheless thorough and complete, otherwise how could he ever have coped at those altitudes when others could not? Odell’s loyalty to the memory of his two friends has always deeply impressed me and it is a mark of the extraordinary man he was that he put himself through such torture in the vain hope that he might find them alive, or at least find out what had happened to them. Whenever I read his story of the last climb I always hold out a lingering hope that perhaps this time the story will be different, perhaps this time there will be a sign of them, that they don’t just disappear into the mists and into legend.